To Catch A Sue
by Caethilia Mordon
Summary: Some days, you get waffles. Some days, you get sucked into a Suefic and are arrested by and shanghaied into joining the TPC. Much to her horror, Janet is about to experience the latter.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

The printer whirred and creaked as it spat out its last page of closely packed text. Then, with no further ado, it set about informing the world that it was dying. Dying! Its cartridges were dry, its cables chewed, and its handy little paper-catching cuppy-bit had broken off after someone forgot to pack it away properly and then sat on it. Alas, it was a long and unhappy list of grievances and injuries that this loyal piece of office equipment would take with it into the next world.

The tragedy of this event brought no sympathy from the girl trying to use it.

"Useless piece of. . ." An entire family of swear words withered, unspoken, on Janet's tongue. It would be a very stupid big sister who said such things in hearing distance of her younger counterpart, especially when said sibling knew perfectly well that Janet was not supposed to use foul language in the house.

Janet sighed through gritted teeth. _It would be a hell of a lot more convenient, _she thought, grabbing errant pages of text from the floor the printer had spat them on to, _if the 'flu blocked up her ears instead of her throat._

_Then again, not having to hear to yell all the time is a nice change. Oh, god. . ._

A strange sort of noise was coming from the next room. Not quite as interestingly strange as the death throes of the printer, but quite strange nonetheless. It was, as Janet knew, the sound of a phlegmy thirteen-year-old girl wondering what was taking her sister so long printing off a story from the internet.

What had taken Janet so long was the utter uselessness of the printer, but such an excuse was not valid _chez _Ashleigh Wattingford. No, no- the real truth must be that Janet was playing around online when she should be doing this one little thing for her poor, desperately ill little sister; that she was gadding around wasting time while poor Ashleigh wasted away for want of that sandwich you were going to make me _hours_ ago, and-while-you're-at-it-get-me-some-more-Just-Juice-and-my-chocolate-bar. Oh, come on, it's only just over there! No, beside the book. The _other_ book. Well, _duh_ I meant on the windowsill on the other side of the room. That's what I said in the first place.

Only, of course, she didn't actually say 'gadding', as such. This word has been edited in the replace another word that the publishers decided needed to be edited out as it was an entirely unsuitable thing for a girl of Ashleigh's tender years to say.

Also of note is the fact that all this was said through a throat and voice box entirely coated in the worst type of yellow-green phlegm, rendering some words quite spluttery and others completely impossible to understand. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Janet had simply misheard her sister's directions as to the whereabouts of the bar of chocolate and that Ashleigh really is nothing but a poor, sweet little girl struck down by horrid fevers and coughs who wished for nothing more than a little comfort while she lay invalid in bed, unable even to open the curtains and see the bright sky and twittering birds for fear of irritating her already burning headache.

The fact that all the birds within a five-hundred-metre radius of the Wattingford home had earlier that morning been driven from their nests by the sound of Avril Lavigne's new single emitting from the now be-curtained room has exactly nothing to do with anything stated in the previous paragraph, nor with the painful throbbing of Ashleigh's head.

In any case, it was a mere forty three and a half minutes before Janet had finally appeased Ashleigh with constant offerings of drinks, nibbles, midday assortment of medicines, more drinks, three more pillows, five fewer pillows, a fresh duvet cover to replace the one Ashleigh spilt the 'more drinks' on, and even more drinks to replace the spilt ones. It was then that Ashleigh made her most chilling request of the day.

To make the situation easier for the reader to understand, please note that when the person making a request such as the one made here has the ability to, via certain parental units, make the life of the receiver of the request's life an unbearable, internet-free, telephone-free, chore-heavy hell, then the person to whom the request is made really does not have the option to refuse. So, if it is easier to do so, instead of 'request,' please read 'Forceful Command, like that of a God telling its Minions to Destroy the Unbelievers (On Pain Of Much Smiting.)'

"Will you read me the story?"

Black dots appeared in Janet's vision, a fact of which, once she realised what had happened, she was extremely proud. It was the closest she'd ever come to fainting and as usual, nothing had come of it.

But that didn't change what she now had to do.

Hands trembling, Janet picked up the sheaf of papers she had printed off earlier. It was upside-down. She turned it around, and the title seemed to burst off the page:

_Syrhénna Starflower; Roses, tears and moonlite Vows_

Janet took a deep breath, and began to read.

"The shining rain dripped over Syrhénna's face like hundreds of silver glimmering tears. She was waiting in the crying rain which reflected her own sorrowfil heart for the man who made her heart whole draco malfoy the love of her life. She knew she could save him from lord Vodlemorte and together they would bring the dark Lord's evil rain to an end. . ."

It was dark, and cold. And wet. Janet figured she must have fallen asleep part-way through the story and had a generous pitcher of water dumped on her head by an indignant Ashleigh, until she fell out of the tree she was perched in.

It was a long enough fall for Janet to realise that she was most definitely not in Ashleigh's room any more. Or, for that matter, anywhere she had been before.

She landed on the ground with an almighty _splat_ that somehow went unnoticed by the two figures standing not ten metres in front of her. She couldn't tell for sure in all the rain- it really was pouring down- but she was pretty sure that one was a boy and the other a girl. Quite obviously a girl, in fact.

In fact, so obviously a girl that Janet actually looked away with embarrassment. This was a girl whose mother had apparently never warned her about going out in the wet without putting a coat on.

She didn't have that much of a shirt on, either, come to think of it.

Janet was beginning to feel very uncomfortable, not least because her fall had resulted in her left leg being twisted underneath her in what would probably turn out to be a very damaging way. No, the thing that was worrying Janet the most at this point was that she seemed to have been dropped into another world.

She was quite certain this was another world.

The biggest hint of the fact was the very large number of glitter-winged fairies flying around the two people up ahead.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

There was a handy branch hanging down about a foot above Janet's head- grabbing it, she made an almost heroic attempt to pull herself out of the clinging mud.

Unfortunately, all this achieved was to make the branch break and Janet fall back onto her leg with an unforgiving _squelch_. She winced, quite sure that her pinned leg was by now twisted in a direction in which no leg should twist.

There was nothing for it. Janet took a deep breath, spluttered a little as she breathed in what appeared to be - oh, god! - a blue, shimmering butterfly (in the dead of rainy night?), took another, more cautious, deep breath and yelled out:

"Hoy! I need some help over heAAARGH**OUCH**_fuckit_sorryoopswhat the _hell_?"

"Shh!"

"_What?_ Jesus, you landed on my _leg_ . . . owaarghmmmf. . ." she mumbled as her protestations were brought to a halt by the swift placing of a hand over her mouth.

Well aware of the proper etiquette on occasions such as this, Janet bit the hand. It retreated, accompanied by a hastily bitten off swear word.

"What do you think you're doing?" A disembodied voice- or possibly not, as reason pointed out that it was probably attached in some way to the bitten hand- whispered in Janet's direction.

"Oww. . ." the scuffle had somehow worked Janet free of the mud, and she pushed herself upright against the tree. After gingerly testing her leg, she decided it wasn't going to hold up for long enough to run any significant distance. Maybe she could make it to the couple ahead- who seemed to be glowing now, with an ethereal light- with luck. Bracing herself, Janet simultaneously lashed out with the broken branch in her left hand and began to run stumblingly towards the clearing.

She actually managed to get two metres before being, once again, knocked to the ground by her mysterious assailant.

"You can't go up there! You'll blow our cover!"

"I'll _what_? Let go of me, you creep- aaaaaaeeeaaasnnrf."

With a little help from a chloroform rag, Janet was out like a light.

Janet woke up in stages. First, her leg started aching. This set off a chain reaction with other various parts of her body, beginning with what felt like a skinned right knee and winding up into a glorious finale with the throbbing mesh of curried sandpaper that, upon closer inspection, turned out to be her head. One eyelid creaked open, seemingly of its own free will. Janet certainly couldn't remember telling it to do so.

Bar. . . bar lights. Bar light? Oh, god, she hadn't fallen asleep in Chem _again_-

Scrambling to stand up, Janet tumbled off the bench she hadn't known she was lying on and fell to her knees on the floor. Oh, yes, definitely skinned.

But also, definitely not in the Chemistry lab at school. No Chem lab Janet knew of had prison bars across it. Looking around, she realised with a sort of dull panic that the padlock on the door was, in fact, on the _other _side of the door.

Well, not so much dull panic any more. More a bubbling mix of desperate panic and sheer mindless terror, to tell the truth.

After a few minutes, she stopped screaming, and a voice wavered:

"No one will come down, you know."

And what a voice! It wavered, it trembled, it lilted with tremulous tears and melodiously wove into angelic music that simple hopeless expression of woe. The air, Janet noticed, seemed to brighten and become more sweet with this unseen maiden's voice.

"Er. . . where are you?" Janet was sure she'd seen no one in the room. Turning around and scanning every wall, she became even more sure that the cell was, apart from her self and the wooden bench, completely empty.

The voice laughed sadly, like silver chimes in the rain.

"I'm right. . . here."

"I can't _see_ you." Things were getting worse and worse. This disembodied voice didn't even have a hand to validate it.

"You have to _wait_ after I say that!"

"Oh. . ."

Not quite sure what was happening, Janet waited. Presently, she noticed a glow forming in her and, as several head-shakings and eye-rubbings failed to make it disappear, she decided to continue waiting and see what happened.

It really was, she decided, a sight worth waiting for. First, the glow became brighter and brighter until it coalesced into a sort of really, really bright girl-shaped hole, which then proceeded to become less and less dark until it became an actual girl. Not a hole. Janet thought this was awfully good, and decided to show her appreciation by clapping.

Unfortunately, Janet had been using one hand to hold herself upright by the cell bars and when this hand was removed to perform appreciative clapping, Janet slid to the floor. As her legs seemed to have formed a collective and gone on strike, she was forced to continue watching the show from there.

And what a show it was! For, really, each of the girl's features had to be looked at separately to be properly appreciated. Janet's eyes were caught first by the mysteriously alluring girl's hair, which slid in sheets of pearly gossamer over her shoulders like liquid moonbeams. It reached all the way to the ground and Janet's eyes followed it there, at the same time marvelling over its knotless beauty and suppressing an ugly gnaw of envy in her stricken heart. Then her eyes found the vision's shoes- and what shoes! – masterpieces of softest calf that were nevertheless overshadowed by the perfect brilliance of the feet inside them. Janet's eyes, tearing themselves away from the wonder of those dainty ankles, next rose upwards to take in, in all its glory, the luminescent gown of a blue so pure it brought tears to her eyes. Finally, Janet rested her eyes upon the face of this faultless, perfect, wondrous being.

Oh alabaster brow! Oh eyebrows curved like Diana's bow, which rested angel-like above the emerald orbs that were this Muse's blessed eyes! Oh sorrowful single tear, fallen like a diamond raindrop 'pon that ivory cheek!

The goddess began to speak but so enraptured by the movements of the speaker's cherry lips was she that Janet heard not a word. Finally, her eyes near spilling over with tears at the thought of what agony such an angel much be feeling at being imprisoned in such a cruel, cold cell as this, Janet quavered one single, worshipping question:

"Who. . . who are you?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

The goddess frowned. "That's what I've just been _telling_ you for the last half hour! Weren't you listening?"

"Erm. . ."

Quite happy to recite the story of her tragic past again, however, the girl smiled beatifically and repeated:

"My name is Syrhénna Starflower and I am the only daughter of Voldemort and the Elvish queen Niavidor. I lived among my mother's people for thirteen wonderful years, learning archery, sword combat and all manners of Elvish and Wizarding magic until I was the strongest in the land. But when I was thirteen, Voldemort found out that I existed and sent hundreds of Death Eaters to my home and killed all my family and friends and kidnapped me. He kept me imprisinned in a dungeon for many years until I found the strength to escape when I overheard two guards saying that my evil father was planning to make Draco Malfoy (who I was engaged to) become a death Eater and kill people. I wandered the earth for endless days until I found him last night and _this isn't supposed to happen!"_

"What?" Janet was feeling a bit queasy, which in turn made her feel a bit guilty. Syrhénna's (even her name was beautiful!) story was so terrible, and she was so _brave_, risking her father's wrath to save her true love from the dark side. . . so what was wrong? Surely she should be dong whatever was in her humble abilities to offer comfort to this poor, ethereal being, not sitting on the floor and, well, fighting the urge to throw up.

"Well, her body seems to be rejecting the Sue, even if her mind is complete mush."

"Um, Barbara? You do know this is recording?"

"Oh, right. . . subject is displaying signs of subconscious rejection of the Sue but is still psychically vulnerable to the Sue's influence, namely, the ability to manipulate the emotions of characters in her immediate vicinity in such a way that they perceive her as being inconceivable perfect and/or an instant love interest (illegal under clause 1.6 of the Laws of Fandom Writing)." Barbara put her hand over the mic and whispered, "Was that all right?"

"Yes, it was great- no, really. You're really getting the hang of brackets, too."

"Aw, thanks, Peter." Barbara grinned and uncovered the recorder. "Can you believe this one can actually pronounce spelling errors this side of the Wall? Ach, I can't bear to think what'll happen when I get in there."

"They're getting worse. Last week one of them broke through George's muffler and managed to convince him to go on a quest for the mythical Amulet of Arachnea with her."

"The what now?"

"Magical device for bringing people back through the Veil."

"Oh." Barbara tapped her foot in irritation. "Another one. Nothing to do with spiders, then?"

The two settled back in their chairs. They were still three hours away from Processing, and until then there really wasn't anything to do except watch the two cellmates through the one-way concrete wall n front of them. One-way concrete was so new that the novelty hadn't yet worn off- Jack had brought some back from his suspension in Storage- and the thought that all the people inside the cell could see when looking their way was a concrete wall declaiming the ages-old "Gaz woz ere" was enough to keep Barbs and Peter reasonably amused for at least that long. If not, they could always switch their side of the wall to the movie channel.

"Are you going to help me?" Syrhénna's voice quavered like a host of angels teetering on the edge of a cliff. "I have to save Draco!"

"What? Help you how?" Janet sniffed. Oh, now she was going to get a cold. Brilliant, just bloody brilliant. Her feet were cold, too, Janet having been wandering around the house in slippers before all this happened, and her leg was still aching- no, make that periods of aching interspersed with short, sharp periods of jabbing pain- and the concrete floor in the cell was really very uncomfortable. Worse than the seats in school assembly, and that was saying something. Not to mention the headache that seemed to be getting worse every second-

"Are you going to help me?" Janet glanced up at Miss Starflower, meaning to immediately return her attentions to her own aches and pains but instead was instantly mesmerized, once again, by the girl's haunting eyes. Suddenly, Janet's own woes seemed like mere molehills compared to the Himalaya of Syrhénna's own troubles, and with this knowledge Janet was able to ignore her injuries long enough to stagger over to the bench and put a comforting, albeit rather muddy, arm around the half-elven princess's shoulders. After a moment or two she realised that having a soggy shoulder probably wouldn't be much help to the girl, and removed it.

"If by 'help' you mean getting us both out of here then yeah, sure thing."

Syrhénna sniffed delicately. "How?"

"Er. . ." Janet racked her brain, a process which is not usually as painful as it sounds but, in this instance, was. Trying to ignore the sensation of her cerebral functions being pulled apart by a hunchbacked medieval torturer, she scanned the room for possible escape routes.

To her extreme annoyance, there appeared to be none. The room was square and rather resembled a large concrete box with bars running from floor a few metres in front of the two cellmates. Behind the bars- just a few frustrating centimeters out of reach- was a door that was completely nondescript and somewhat dreary until you noticed that there wasn't a handle on it. Then it became rather forbidding- quite a feat for a length of plywood nicked from a demolition site. On top of that, there were no windows and the roof, unbeknownst to the two girls, had been lowered thirty centimetres to create a feeling of claustrophobia.

Janet, who had spent a lively childhood hiding in closets and toy chests from chores, didn't notice this in the slightest.

"Oh, well. . ." she muttered, hobbling back over to the stool again. Syrhénna didn't respond. "Um, er, I don't think we're going to be able to get out."

No answer.

Janet turned to face Miss Starflower. "Are you even listeni- Jesus Christ!"

It had taken her the first part of a sentence to realise what was happening. Or, rather, not happening.

Janet realised, in a stunned sort of way, that it is very easy to tell the difference between a person who is simply holding their breath and staying very, very still and a person who wasn't breathing at all.

Syrhénna was the latter.

"Oh my god, oh Christ on a freaking _crucifix_, oh -mushroom- -Finland- -anthrax- "

She stopped. Something wasn't right- well, strictly speaking _another_ thing wasn't right. "What the -arbitrary finkwhiddle- ?"

"It's zer automatic censor,. I'm afroid. Oh, -bacon- !"

Janet looked up. The door was open! Unfortunately, it was blocked by the girl who had just spoken and Janet really didn't think her leg could hold up for long enough to make a heroic dash for freedom. Or any other part of her body, for that matter. Her knees would probably fall off before she'd taken two steps.

"Excuze moy, Miz? If you could plaise follow may?" The new arrival seemed eager to leave, and kept shooting glaring little glances in Syrhénna's direction.

"I- what? No! Um! What did you _do _to her!" Janet gestured wildly at the wooden bench, where Syrhénna was still sitting, completely motionless. "I-I don't think she's even breathing or anything, it's like she's, she's-"

"Dead wizowt toppelling ovair?"

"What? Yes!" Janet stopped gesturing and turned back to glare at the new girl. "What's wrong with her?"

The girl shrugged. "Ve haf put her in stasiz while hyu come viz moy. Plaise? Oi'm zhorry abowt ze haczent," she added, as Janet looked at her dumbly. "Look, vould hyu plaise just staynd up end come viz may?"

"Come with you where?"

"Oh, jhust hurray, vill you? Ve har goink to zee somevon hew cahn hailp hyu viz all they strange things, ja?"

"Oh. . ." Not quite sure what was being said to her, Janet stood, leant on the girl's proffered arm and half-followed, half-was dragged down the corridor behind the handleless door.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Interrogation begins oh-three-fifty hours. Present are Agents Peter and Barbara, interrogatee. . . interro. . . subject brought in for questioning is one Janet Wattingford, female, late teens-"

"-I'm seventeen-and-a-bit, actually-"

"-roughly one hundred seventy centimetres tall, brought in after attempting to interfere with the apprehension of the Mary Sue Syrhénna Starflower-"

"She's a _what_?"

"-at approximately seventeen thirty last night."

"Oh, _god. . ._"

"Subject shows no typical signs of generic Sueness, and during observation appeared to be completely overpowered by the Sue Syrhénna, to such an extent that the subject appeared to forget her own personal injuries and scour the holding cell for an escape route."

"Aargh. . ."

"Said injuries being, as far as I can tell without being dreadfully indecent, various cuts and grazes to her head and arms, what looks to be a nasty bruise coming up on her left fore-arm and a limp. Said injuries also being acquired through no fault of any Division Eight Agent as George was the one who found her and he doesn't even hurt tiger worms, for God's sake, and besides she fell out of a tree-"

"Ouch, yes."

"-and that's probably where she got her injuries. Agent Barbara will now conduct the interview."

Janet looked up. Normally she would have looked up before this point, but her neck had argued passionately for the _modus operandi_ of flopping forward and letting Janet's head rest against her chest. Her muddy chest. But now, dazedly wiping mud off her chin, Janet looked up.

There was a light.

Bulb.

It was pointed at her but, in the same way the corridor on the way to this room had seemed dull and unimpressive, the same way the table she had been staring at for the last five minutes was some sort of tinny plastic thing, it was oddly underwhelming. For one thing, it wasn't really all that bright. In fact, it was so dim that when it flickered- and it was doing so quite often- you could hardly tell.

Or was it flickering?

After careful consideration, Janet decided that it wasn't flickering. It appeared to have died.

Were they asking her questions? They had said this was an interror, an interrogashe- a question-thing.

"Miss Wattingford, are you listening?"

Oh. They were asking her questions, then. Dammit.

Question. . . answer. She should answer.

"Erm, no, sorry. I wasn't. What?"

A sigh. "Miss Wattingford, could you please tell us what you were doing in the introductory chapter of '_Syrhénna Starflower: Roses, tears and moonlite Vows_'?"

"I- what? I don't know! Wait. . . how do you know my name? Who are you people?"

"I am Agent Peter of Division Eight of the True Continuum Police. This is my colleague, Agent Barbara. Please answer the question."

"I already answered the question, I said I don't know! And-" Janet could feel her voice wobbling and this made her even more upset- "that doesn't _help_, you know. You're police? You can't be, you're my age, you, um, shit. I was in that godawful story? Is that what you're saying? That's mad, that isn't possible, it's, it's _inconceivable _only I guess it isn't really 'cos you always get it in stories and stuff but it isn't _real. . ._"

Barbara and Peter waited patiently while Janet rambled on. Some minutes later, Barbara leant forward to put a fresh tape in the recorder.

"I mean, this is probably all just a bad dream brought on by having to look after Ashleigh or a hallucination caused by bad cheese or the light from Venus bouncing of marsh fog right?" Janet looked around hopefully. "Right?"

"No." Barbara's accent had now righted itself. This was made obvious by the fact that her negative response had not been "Nyeiarn."

"Oh."

"Indeed," Barbara barked. "Next question, try to answer this one properly. What are the three cardinal rules for. . . Peter, this is _useless_," she cried as Janet's eyes lost focus. "She's not registered with any branch of the Agency or listed as deceased, presumed deceased, unwritten or gone rogue."

"I know, Barbara."

"Then I have to ask why we're going through with this. I know it's procedure, but-"

"But we should be using our time to ensure the Sue doesn't escape and wreak havoc upon George?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of it escaping and destroying our only remaining cell room in the process, sir." Barbara managed not to make the last word sound like an afterthought. Now was not an opportune time for snapping at her captain- not with his retirement so imminent.

"That's true." Peter's brows furrowed in grim contemplation, an expression he had perfected during his many years of contemplating the grim reality that is the Mary Sue. "Very well- yes, Miss Wattingford?"

Janet stared, her eyes refocusing on the uniformed man on the other side of the table. This was not a good start, she realised. Ever since- well, she couldn't remember exactly, but uniforms and handsome young men calling her "Miss" in a rather glorious English accent after noticing that she'd been trying to say something tended to stuff around rather with Janet's hormones.

"Um, um. . ." Brilliant, now she was blushing at what would probably turn out to be a hallucination caused by housework-induced exhaustion. "Er, she- Syrhénna- didn't look like she was really up to, um, breaking out of _anywhere_, um, when we left her. . ."

Janet gulped as the dashing young captain- no, dammit, _weird figment of your imagination who locked you up and then made the even weirder German girl ask strange questions at you_- anyway, as Peter fixed her with a piercing stare (ah, those years of directing piercing stares at new recruits!).

"The stasis only works for a very short period of time, Miss Wattingford," he informed her gravely as several hundred of Janet's brain-cells collectively died of crush overload, "just long enough to get you out of the holding room, in fact."

Just as Janet opened her mouth to say something sparkling and witty (probably along the lines of "Oh. . .flaaarg!") a terrified scream split the air.

"Ah." Peter rose and turned to Barbara. "Put her through the Tester, will you? Full capacity, I think, it'll save time later on. I'll go rescue George."

Somewhat scared by the manic grin Peter was wearing (no need to practice this one!) and rather more scared by his casual mention of "full capacity" with this Tester thing, Janet slid under the table. Actually, this was not so much a tactical manoeuvre as it was a result of her muscles all simultaneously failing and causing her to fall off her chair.

"Get up." The girl- Barbara- obviously had no patience for people whose legs had abandoned them. Janet felt rather miffed. "Oh, look- grab my hand, I'll pull you up. Good. Just step this way, through this door."

Barbara helped Janet through the door in question with a well-timed shove in the small of the back, and she stumbled forward. Into darkness.

Well, not quite. There was a small, bright light somewhere ahead of her. It looked like it was getting closer.

Oh, now everything was light. Ouch. Not good for the eyes, that-

Back in the interview room, Barbara leant against the table and waited for the Tester to print off its results. From what she could see on the screen things looked good for the girl, but it was hard to tell. Data flickered past almost too fast to read, height-weight-age-origin-build-measurements-litmus-contents of stomach-teeth- too much. Colin could deal with it later. In the meanwhile, coffee beckoned.

Or it would have, had coffee not been made a restricted substance by the Ministry of Edibles the day before. Remembering this, Barbara gritted her teeth and grabbed a can of Generic Carbonated Beverage (Lemon). She would have to ask Jack if he could get any.

A light flicked on above the door Janet had been so unceremoniously pushed through. Green. _Good,_ though Barbara, _we need some fresh blood around here. . ._

-------

Many hundreds of thanks to my beta, b2wm (maysheliveforever)

in order to continue beta-ing my fic :P


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Peter grinned. It had been a long time since he'd been allowed to do this- too long. Standing before the Mary Sue, he recited the familiar words:

"Syrhénna Starflower, you are hereby charged with unlawfully entering the canon of Harry Potter and committing the following: causing heavy rain to be far more romantic than it should be; possessing the ability to alter the perception and emotions of a canon character, namely Draco Malfoy; using said ability to cause Master Malfoy to fall in love with you with the intention of using his father's place at Voldemort's side to find and destroy the Dark Lord in an act illegal under Rule Eighteen, namely, Thou Shalt Not Presume, subcategory J, To Conclude The Story Of An Unfinished Canon; of, once apprehended, further using said ability to incapacitate an Agent of the True Continuum Police, namely George-"

George waved half-heartedly from where he sat collapsed against the corridor wall. "Thanks, Pete."

"- and causing said Agent to join with you in your attempt to re-enter Harry Potter canon and complete your _story_," he concluded, spitting the last word. The pain of having to refer to the drivel Mary Sues appear in as a 'story' never really went away. So much for the Law of Diminishing Returns.

"In response to your simply breaking into canon the Council would have been prepared to be lenient, but as you have also seen fit to attempt to return to the 'verse, destroying Agency property and incapacitating an Agent in the process, it is my duty to inform you that you will receive the harshest sentence- the sentence of _death-_ actually, no, wait-"

Unfortunately for the Sue, the creature sneaking up behind her had acted upon the word _death._ Had it not- had it waited for Peter to amend his proclamation- the Sue would have faced a professional and completely pain-free reassignment as a filing cabinet. Instead, she was swallowed.

"Dammit, Jack!"

"Hurrah!"

"Oh, do be quiet, George. Jack, you didn't even _chew_."

The dragon addressed as Jack gulped a few times before answering. "Nyump- aah. Foot got stuck. Never chew this type. Hair gets stuck in your teeth. Oh, don't grouch, Pete. Just tell the Council she. . . disappeared, hmm?"

"She did, anyway, so it isn't even lying," George put in. "Thanks, Jack. I owe you big time."

"Not at all. First decent meal I've had in months." Jack rolled a yellow eye at Peter. "First since that Jelaquil girl from Claormene, really." That had been a fun mission. Since Claormene didn't actually exist, all the Calormene soldiers the half-dryad had summoned to protect her had simply helped Barbs apprehend the wench.

"You told me she ran off a cliff!"

"Yes." The dragon smirked. "_I_ was at the _bottom_ of the cliff. Are you going to report me, or can I head back to barracks now?"

Peter gritted his teeth, a pastime he often employed when dealing with this particular insubordinate subordinate. "Go. Drop George off at the hospital wing on your way."

After the two Agents had gone, George complimenting Jack on his marvellous victory over the Sue all the while, Peter turned back up the corridor. Time to see what the other girl was made of.

Janet. That was strange. A little too strange to be a coincidence.

- - - - - - - - - -

"What _was_ that?" Janet managed to inject a snap into what would normally have been a breathless gasp. "All those- everything! Going through my head!"

"Testing. We all go through it." Barbara was leafing through the pages the Tester had spewed out. She frowned. "This can't be right. . ."

"Tested? For what?"

"Awareness, depth, possibilities for emotional and character growth. . . Peter! Look at this." Barbara shoved the sheaf of papers at the captain as he walked through the door. "Look at her origin. It makes no sense-"

"Actually, Barbara, it does." Peter aimed another piercing look at Janet, who almost fainted- but again, not quite. "Miss Wattingford- would you be so kind as to tell us, in your own words, exactly what happened to you last night?"

So Janet, somewhat glad to be able to get it all off her chest, told him. She stumbled a bit over her words a bit at the beginning, and rushed through the incident with what she had since realised was a despicable Mary Sue without touching on many points, but managed to finish off with a decent rant about the way she had been treated. Finally, as was both her right and very much expected of her, she demanded to be told what the hell was going on.

"You haven't figured it out yet?" Barbara asked scathingly. "The Test had you down as smarter than this. I guess it needs a tune-up."

"Barbara." Peter was using his Captain voice- time to reign in the sarcasm. "Look- George is in the hospital wing, and Miss Wattingford looks like she could use some time there. George can answer any questions she has. You and I need to report to HQ."

"Why?"

"Jack ate the Sue."

"Dammit! Again?"

Peter's eyes narrowed. "I'm not going to ask what you mean by 'again'- I'm just going to hope you're referring to the Claormene incident. Take the young lady to the hospital wing, and hurry back. Oh- and tell George he's not to _encourage_ Jack, all right?"

"Will do, sir."

- - - - - - - - - -

The hospital wing was bleak and smelt of disinfectant, the linoleum floors and walls lit by long strip-lights set into the ceiling which, if Janet wasn't mistaken, was also covered in linoleum. Most of the rooms they passed were at least half filled, their occupants either lying distressingly quietly or joking heartily with their fellow patients. The room Barbara led Janet to, however, only had one other patient inside.

And a dragon. Jack took up quite a bit of room.

"Move, over, Jack- the new girl needs a bed. And you need to go pretend you've been in barracks since you returned, in case HQ decides to investigate the Mystery of the Amazing Disappearing Sue. . ."

"Consider me long gone." Jack stalked out of the room. It was quite a sight, a stalking dragon, especially for someone who'd never seen a lizard bigger than a tuatara before. Janet stared after him as Barbara pushed her onto a bed, a little more carefully than she had pushed her into the Tester. Janet fell gratefully onto the bed. It was good to lie down, especially when standing up involved so many aching pains. . .

"George, you're to answer any questions Janet has." The boy in the next bed started slightly at hearing Janet's name, then nodded. "I'm off to report- see you at tea, if you're back." Barbara strode off back the way she and Janet had come in. Janet sighed and shut her eyes. Everyone here seemed to walk so _quickly_.

"So. . . Janet." George stumbled a bit on the last word, unused to using it so informally. Years of habit were hard to break, but he managed to resist saying "Miss" between "So" and "Janet".

The Janet in question opened her eyes and pulled herself up into a sitting position. This was unfortunately uncomfortable, as TPC-issue hospital beds are made specifically with the comfort of comaed-out Agents in mind, not sitting-up-so-as-not-to-appear-rude interlopers. She looked over at the boy who had spoken.

He looked back, grinned, and stuck out a hand.

"Hi. I'm George, Farmacist for TPC Divisions three through eight. Shake?"

"What?"

George's grin cracked a little. "Please. No asking why, no cute little references to a certain film. Just shake." Janet did, making sure to wipe her hand on a sheet first. She was still excessively muddy, although it was drying off in the warm room. Flakes of dirt floated off her arm as she held it out.

"No, I wasn't going to do any of that. I meant, um, what's all that stuff you just said? TPC? Divisions? And, um, sorry, but aren't you a bit young to be a pharmacist? I thought you needed _years_ of training and stuff. . ."

The boy's grin widened. "You've just seen a dragon and you're confused about me being a pharmacist?"

"Er. . . yes, that does sound a little stupid. I think my brain's barely dealing with the easy things at the moment, though, and drugs are familiar ground, right?"

"I don't know. Are they?"

Janet flailed nervously. "Medicine drugs! Legal ones, like, like aspirin and iron tablets and, um, more aspirin. Vitamin C tablets!"

"All right, all right. Calm down." George settled back on his bed, which some kind soul had seen fit to make comfortable with a variety of colourful pillows. "It's Farmacist, by the way, not pharmacist. Eff, not pee aitch."

"That makes even less sense than it did before, then."

"Not really. Farmacist skills are mostly in-built, like having a green thumb except more colourful. Basically it's just dangerous gardening." Although not, he thought glumly, as dangerous as coming _out _of the garden and walking into a stray Sue. "So. I'm supposed to answer any questions you have. Fire away."

"Can't you just explain stuff and I'll stop you when you get to something hard?"

"Answer- no. All information given to non-Agents must be given in a strict question-answer format. It's in the rules, I'm afraid." It had been one of the first rules, in fact, made after Colin had gotten especially tipsy before a mission one night and told a Self-Insert about the TCP. It'd taken three days to track the Insert's Outworld persona and wipe the information.

Janet blinked. "All right, then. Um. . . is the ceiling really lino?"

"Yup! Easier to wash, I guess. Bit hard if you've taken a knock on the head and think it's the floor, but. Next question?"

"Oh. . ." Hard to wash? Janet decided not to think about that. In her experience ceilings didn't need to be washed that often, and she had a feeling she didn't want to think about why a hospital ceiling would need to be washed very often. "Where are we, then?"

"Hospital Wing of the True Continuum Police, the second-largest Department in the Agency."

"Um, right. What's the True Continuum Police? And the-"

_-- Zeeeeink! --_

"Ah, dammit. Pass me that, will you?" George pointed at what looked like a smallish, green brick on the floor by Janet's bed. "Must've dropped it when I came in- thanks."

"No worries- what is it?"

"Not really sure. It does most stuff, though. For messages, mostly," George said absently. "Oh."

"What?"

George grimaced apologetically at her. "Congratulations. You're now an Agent of the True Continuum Police, you poor bugg- thing."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"_WHAT?_" Janet was sure she'd heard him wrong. This was impossible. Worse than impossible, although she wasn't quite sure what the word for that would be. "But. . . but I didn't sign up or anything! Even in, even in the Fan Fiction Universities you have to sign up," she recalled, the name coming suddenly to her lips. "And I didn't!"

"Sorry." George did look sorry. He didn't shrug impassively or anything. "It's just we're really short on staff right now, and. . . Well, look on the bright side, now you don't have to ask questions for me to tell you things. And you'll get something done for all your bruises."

"But that was going to happen anyway, wasn't it?" Short on staff? They had a bloody dragon! It was at least four metres tall!

"Er, no, actually. Agency facilities are only available to registered characters. And news gets around fast- here's a nurse now."

As Janet had her various and numerous bumps and scrapes washed, be-lotioned and bound by a rather pretty young man in white, George explained the situation to her. She had, according to the message he had just received from Captain Peter, been what is officially known as 'shanghaied' into joining the True Continuum Police after displaying a rare and unwritable (Janet didn't quite understand that bit) talent for reading herself into a canonverse via badfic. She would, when the paperwork was sorted out, become an Agent of Division Eight of the True Continuum Police, the eighth and, according to George, absolute best of thirteen Divisions.

The True Continuum Police itself was, as far as Janet could make out, a sort of government department whose job it was to jump in and out of badfics that had breached the True Continuum of any canon (as opposed to, Janet supposed, the False Continuum, although what either was she had no idea) and apprehend the Mary Sues within. What happened to the Mary Sues afterwards Janet didn't quite catch, although George seemed quite disgruntled about it. The Agency itself, George explained, was the governing force that ruled over every character extracted from fan fiction.

Well, almost all.

Anyway, the Agency was quite good in that it made sure everyone was employed and fed and, it tried to ensure, not killed too horrifically (in the case of TCP Agents, that is). Its largest Department was the Ministry of Edibles, followed by the TCP and Internal Affairs, followed by a great many other Ministries and Departments and so forth, the names of which flew in and out of Janet's head like little birds. Birds in a nest, obviously, not in Janet's head.

And, now, the Agency had employed Janet. According to George, employment in the TCP was far preferable to employment elsewhere, and much better paid. She would have to go through training first, of course, but that wasn't too hard, especially since the training centre itself had been pulled down only last week to make room for the new Mary Sue Rehabilitation Association Centre. Again, Janet noticed a hint of the disgruntled and, possibly, resentful in George's voice as he talked. Again, she didn't ask him why.

"And, well, that's about it, really," George concluded weakly, brushing a hank of golden brown hair off his face. "Pamela will probably end up training you, but it'll be either Colin or Barbara who actually take you out on practice missions. Pete's too busy and, well, they don't let Jack go on missions with newbies. Not any more, any way." Something occurred to him suddenly. "And, hah, now that you're here I won't have to take mission shifts any more! Great! Er, I mean, great in a very-sorry-for-you way."

"Do you do missions, then?" Janet suddenly noticed that George was sporting a fresh-looking bruise on his right cheekbone.

"Um, yes, actually. A few." He also, Janet noticed with a growing feeling of unease, had a bandaged hand. His left hand.

Oh dear.

"Have you, ah, done any missions recently, then?"

George could actually feel himself starting to blush, bother it. "Yes."

"Oh."

There were a few minutes of agonizing silence before:

"Look-I'm-so-sorry-I-usually-don't-go-around-knocking-people-out-with-chloroform-but-you-were-going-to-"

"Omigod-did-I-do-that-to-you? God-um-I-don't-usually-bite-people-you-just-really-scared-the-shit-out-of-me-um-"

"Sorry, pardon?"

"What?"

The two considered each other carefully while they tried to remember what the other had said.

"So. . . you don't usually bite people. That's good to hear." George felt the blush subsiding. That was good. Maybe this could all be worked out calmly-

"You knocked me out with _Chloroform?_" Or perhaps not. "Isn't that dangerous? I read somewhere that you can _die_ if you breathe in too much!"

"No, wait, I- really? Where did you read that?"

Janet stuck out her chin defiantly. "Somewhere." She really couldn't remember where, and was beginning to wonder if she hadn't just made it up.

"Oh, well then. It might be in the Outworld but over here it just puts you to sleep for a while. Blyton issue, I think, they usually have a good supply, what with all the smugglers and kidnappers that lot runs into. . ."

"Blyton? Like, Enid Blyton? Lashings-of-ginger-beer-for-Timmy Enid Blyton?" Janet was, despite herself, intrigued. Enid Blyton had played a reasonably sized part in her childhood, and had resulted in no less than three separate lots of neighbors complaining to Janet's parents about being accused of, respectively, burying stolen bullion in the back of their garden (actually turned out to be potatoes being planted), kidnapping the son of a wealthy American bank manager (the boy turned out to be the couple's nephew, being babysat while his parents, both science teachers, went to a conference in Wellington) and being a secretly wealthy recluse who stole children's tennis balls (this one is thought to be true, although has not been thus far proven y any reliable authorities). Now that she thought about it, Janet could remember a great many of the kidnap plots (and a great many of them there were) including the kidnapped person being overcome by what usually turned out to be a chloroform-dipped handkerchief of some description. And none of them had ended up with brain damage.

At least, they hadn't ended up any more dimwitted than the rest of Blyton's adult characters.

"That's the one! Famous Five, Five Find-Outers, those ones with Barney, Malory Towers, St Clair's. Gosh, I really do envy the Division that looks after those. Hardly any Sues at all, and all that _food_!" George had actually been granted holiday leave into a Blyton continuum some time ago, and had come five kilos heavier.

Janet nodded, reminiscing. "And the Secret Seven, of course. Didn't they have picnic lunches in a shed, or something? Jack and Janet's shed, wasn't it? God, it's been _ages_ since I read them, who were the others? Peter and Barbara, Ju- no, he was Famous Five- um, Colin. . . George. . ."

George watched Janet's face as realization struck. It was quite interesting, really. "And Pam, too," he prompted. "Only you haven't met her yet. Or Colin, but that's probably a blessing."

"You're. . . you're really. . ." Now this was going too far. She had been kidnapped By Enid Blyton characters?

"No." Oh, good. She hadn't then. That would have been worse than just being plain kidnapped, a concept some distant corner of her brain was still coming to terms with. Luckily, it was a rather somnambulant bit of her brain and was therefore not likely to cause her to run around screaming just yet. "That was just an idea of Miss Janet's, when HQ put her in charge of putting together our Division."

"What, she picked you for your names?" Miss Janet? Who was that?

"No-o. She oversaw our reassignments and had us all named for the characters." Seeing Janet's look of mixed despair and confusion turn to one of just plain confusion, he explained: "Reassignment is when an original character is plucked out of a condemned fic and, you know, retrained and fixed up for work in the Agency. We all get name changes, otherwise we'd be up to our necks, well, just past our knees in Jack's case, in Ravens and Hazels and variations of Serena. Barbara used to be Varvara, you know? They just needed to change the language for her new name, Russian to English. Jack, now, Jack was Lord Ker'Lautius the Destroyer. He really enjoyed that job."

"So, do I have to change my name?"

"No, I shouldn't think so, not with you being an Outworlder and all. Besides, you . . . fit. Slot right in, I guess. Bit strange, really." Had George been Peter he would have eyeballed her suspiciously right now, but he wasn't. He was George, and so took this moment to quietly bask in the knowledge that he wouldn't have to take assignments any more.

"You keep saying "Outworlder". Out of what, exactly?" The proper method of allaying confusion was to deal with, one by one, the things that are causing the confusion. People using strange phrases and terms were one of these things- strangely enough, the appearance of a great scaly dragon was not. Janet was still young enough to harbour a small and shameful hope that such things existed, so she wasn't really all that startled by the discovery that they actually did. Well, not too startled.

"Out of. . ." George waved his arm around all-encompassingly. "Er, I guess it's more that we're all _in_, if you see what I mean- no, you don't, do you? Gosh, um, let me see. . . you were in your world last night?"

"Yeah," Janet answered. She could almost feel her brain crying out in anticipation of sweet blessed explanation.

"So, when you left your world, you did so by falling _into_ the badfic. Yes?"

"Yes." All very good, Janet reasoned, but with one problem. "Yes, but now I'm _out_ of the fic, right? Wherever this place is, isn't it just as out of it as my place is?"

"More sideways, really. Look." George pulled a battered notebook out of his pocket. Multifunctional green bricks were all very well in their own way, but you couldn't beat the good old pencil and paper for explanatory diagrams. "Look- see this bowl here? This is 'fanfiction'. All this outside it-" George scribble-shaded the page to emphasise his point, "- is your world. It is _outside_ the bowl, right?"

"I already understood that bit," grumbled Janet.

"Right-ho then. Now, this rectangle here? This is where we are now. It doesn't exist quite as much as your world, so the rectangle is actually rather flat and sub-dimensional, but that's quite hard to draw so it's just a plain rectangle. Please don't ask about sub-dimensional worlds. I don't understand them either."

"So. . . sideways." This was, strangely enough, just understandable enough for Janet's brain to deal with. It just filed the whole thing under 'quantum'. 'Quantum' was, in Janet's brain, a very large file. It included information on not only actual ordinary (i.e. everything taught up to NCEA Level One- everything else is psychophysics, and therefore automatically filed here anyway) physics, but also on how light particles always manage to find the quickest route from one spot to another and why some old pictures of the Big Bang in progress had stars in the background. "I can deal with that, I think."

"Brilliant! We'd better get over to barracks then, if we're going to catch Pamela in that wonderful but short period of time between her recruiting for tea and serving it. Shall we?"

Janet agreed that they should, and George led the way out of the linoleumed depths of the Hospital Wing (it is a true but little-known fact that most of the disappearances of TCP Agents are not due to malfunctioning portals or the fatal talents of Amazonian Sues, but to their being taken to the Hospital Wing and forgotten about. Some eminent theorists with little else to do have put forward the idea that these forgotten Agents have grouped together and formed a collective responsible for the current shortage of blue vein cheese. This theory is untrue: the person responsible for the shortage is Jack. Jack is, in fact, responsible for most of the shortages of blue foods in the Subverse. He says they make his breath sweet, but are no substitute for a good Sue).

It was a long walk.

Ten minutes later, it became a long hobble. Whatever the nurse had done to Janet's leg to make it feel better hadn't been strong enough to make it able to hold up when the elevators were out of order.

Ten minutes later, the hobble became a blissful collapse as the two reached their destination. Just in time for tea, too.

- - - - -

**Author's Note: **Now, I really hate to do this, guys. But gosh darn it if I'm not, at heart, just another 'thor who needs constant encouragement and advice to retain the will to live.

In other words- OMG PLZ RED ND REVEWE PLZ YAY!

Heh. George is the Lord of Exposition. Poor bloke.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

"Cranberry sauce?" Pamela waved the jar enticingly before Janet's face. "You can't have turkey without it, I think. They go together like peas and carrots. Do you want some more peas? Help yourself; we've got to finish all this off before Sunday anyway. Carrots? New ones, straight out of the garden. Go on, have some sauce with your turkey."

Janet swallowed. "It's _green_."

Which was perfectly true- in fact, everything on the table had a slightly emerald tinge.

"Ah, there is that. Doesn't affect the taste, though- eat up!" Taking Janet's slightly queasy silence as a hearty affirmative, Pamela spooned a generous portion of sauce over the leaf-green slices of turkey on her plate. "It's all salvage, of course. Everyone down at the Ministry of Edibles is on strike again, so Jack went and lifted all this from a condemned continuum. Wizard of Oz, wasn't it?" Jack nodded and grunted something through a mouthful of pig (Not pork, pig. Whole pig. Dragons have big mouths). "Another kid who thought everything in the Emerald City was actually green."

"At least they wrote the food well," George said, helping himself to some more perfectly carved ham completely free of gristly lumps and hard chewy bits. "Ish almosh ash good ash Blyton. Why condemned, Ja'?"

"Food only thing written good in the whole thing. Bloody continuum fraying even before we got there."

"Ish like thish," George told Janet through a mouthful of bacon sandwich. Janet watched as he pulled out his sketchbook and drew a thick line down the centre of the page. "Thish here is- umph-"

"Talking with your mouth full, George," Pamela called from the kitchen. "Swallow and start again, and chuck me back my wooden spoon, please.."

"This here is the True Continuum, see? The proper canonverse of, say, Harry Potter. Where we were before. All very well and good, gets breached a bunch of times a week by various Sues but we take care of that. These here," George scribbled a few, shorter lines around the sides of the main one, "are fanonverses, the physical manifestation of various fan fictions which appear for what appears to be no apparent reason."

"Grapefruit in Division Seven's doing research into that," Barbara put in. "Hasn't got anywhere though, I don't think."

"Ah well. Anyway," George continued, "these little ones all basically fall into three groups. Group One, stuff like Shoebox, well-written stuff that most people think is basically canon anyway and which we're not allowed to mess around with. Group Two, well, you get your good and your bad but it's all pretty stable and that. We use the bad ones for training, mostly, so you'll be able to see for yourself. Last of all, Group Three, absolutely terrible little buggers that generally dissolve or implode or something like that. Occasionally one gets condemned if it hangs around too long, such as the one that provided us with this lovely meal. Eat up, it's actually really good. Just green."

Just green. Pretty much described the whole meal, really, and Janet's face too. She speared a piece of turkey on her fork and brought it up to her mouth, careful not to look at it. The green cranberry sauce looked particularly dreadful in the electric light- Janet realised she hadn't seen a window since she'd arrived here, and wondered why.

Presently, her mind drifted from this particular question and on to other matters. She wondered briefly why she seemed to be taking all this so well, decided it was either because she was too weirded out to be freaked out or because her brain had, after being given all this new and unusual information to deal with and make logical, reverted to Default:Hungry.

Actually, the food wasn't too bad, so long as you didn't look at it and completely failed to let your imagination draw pictures of what green cranberry sauce resembled. Mmm.

"Janet?"

The peas, now, the peas she could look at. Which was good, as eating peas without watching what you're doing can prove disastrous, in a Fatal Hail of Vegetables sort of way.

"Yoo-hoo?"

"Unh?" Janet once again astounded the world with her masterful use of vocabulary and wit. "Sorry, er, what?"

"Peter says we have to introduce everyone to you properly," George said. "So, Pamela, could you-?"

"Sorry, George," Pamela almost did look sorry. "I've got to get this place cleaned up before inspection, and I've got to deal with Mr. Malfoy after that. . . besides, you brought her in. she's your responsibility."

"Good god. . . he's complaining _again_? Doesn't he jolly well realise that there's near as bugger all we can do to keep the Sues away from his son?"

"He says it's _disgraceful_ and a _shame upon his family_ the way they jump his kid," Jack harrumphed, emphasising his words his puffs of heavy smoke.

"No smoking at the table, Jack," Pamela berated the dragon absently. "It's the boy I feel sorry for."

"Boy's a complete _bastard_, Pam."

"Smoking, Jack. But just imagine if you were constantly being targeted by Sues? _And _he doesn't eat enough.

"_I'd_ be eating enough if _I_ was surrounded by that many-"

"Oh, get out! Look, you've stained the ceiling again will all that awful smoke, and inspection's tomorrow _morning._ No, actually, you can stay here and clean up. Peter-"

Janet, who had been listening to this conversation and wondering whether she actually was going to get those promised introductions, jumped a little in her chair. Peter of the Uniform was back, looking stern and important as he strode into the room.

"Barbara."

"Yes, sir?"

"HQ just called. We're to give a full report on the mission in ten minutes' time."

Barbara rolled her eyes. "Wonderful. What do we say?"

"You don't need to say anything. I'll deal with it."

"Fine. Sir."

"Very good. Pamela, have you heard from Colin?"

"Yes, actually. He's decided to stay off duty for a while longer- his 'thor's having sudden and frequent bursts of inspiration, I think."

"You think?"

"Well, he wash talking li' shish, so I just assumed. . ."

"Yes, yes. Come on, Barbara, we need to be there in eight minutes."

Janet and George watched the two Agents leave, Janet with a look of wistful longing on her face and George biting his lip with anxiety. As the door slammed officiously shut, George sighed.

"Oh, _brilliant_. I thought they were going to take me with them, there."

"What would be so bad about that?" Janet would have given her left leg to go with them. Except not, because only having one leg would have been a serious impediment given the speed Peter was walking at.

"Oh, gosh. Trust me, you don't want to have to go to HQ, not for anything. Not even to take the General her green fix. Oh, hell, just- really, just pray you never have to go there. Even I find it bloody scary, and I'm a _pharmacist_."

"Oh. . . all right then." Not really understanding what a 'green fix' was, but suspecting it was some sort of drug (possibly green), Janet decided not to pursue the subject. The two sat in silence and watched Pamela bully Jack into cleaning the ceiling.

Two minutes later, dripping wet, they decided to move outside.

"Of course, housework has never been one of Jack's skills," George said, wringing soapy water out of his sleeve. "He'll be in there for hours cleaning up now. Pamela will probably make him eat the rest of the food, too. He'll be burping bubbles for days."

Janet giggled. The image was just too much to bear straight-faced, as had been the sight of Jack tossing the bucket of water at the stained ceiling. "So, um, are you going to tell me who everyone is, then?"

"Oh, yes, sorry about that. Then we'll get you a shower and some new clothes, I think."

"Oh, _yes_." Janet was suddenly horribly aware of what she must look like. A little self-inspection proved that the damage wasn't as bad as she'd thought, as the soapy water had done a bit to wash off some of the remaining dried mud. Unfortunately this had the side-effect of rehydrating the rest of the dirt, but. . . well, fine. Maybe it was that bad.

"Barracks are down here, there's showers and you can borrow Barbara's spare uniform, you're about her size, I'd say."

"Won't she mind?" Janet asked. Barbara had seemed to her to be a girl to stay on the right side of, and making off with her clothes didn't seem to be a good way of doing so.

"Oh, she shouldn't too much. This way!"

"I'd be happier if you said she wouldn't mind at all, you know."

"Right-ho- she won't mind at all. Anyway, introductions, a little late seeing as no one's around to introduce to you now. . . ah well. Peter's Captain of the Division, but he's retiring soon so you probably won't see too much of him, he'll be up to his eyes in paperwork. He'll be in an awful mood now, after that Sue.

"Oh? Why?"

"You'll find out soon enough. Then there's Barbara, she's up for Captainship after Peter's gone. Well, either her or me, and I don't want it. Ex-bit part in a fic that broke through into the Potterverse circa Goblet of Fire, but please don't mention it to her."

"She had that weird accent before, but then it went away."

"Don't mention that, either. Her accent reverts according to Sue proximity, and she hates it."

"Oh, right."

"She'll be taking you for training, most likely. Next, me, going to stay put up at the Pharm forever and ever now that you're here to make up numbers. Jack, dragon. Stomach like a, a thing that never gets indigestion. a thing with great whacking wings and claws and teeth and scales that never gets indigestion. nice bloke, once you get to know him."

"Ah, right. Is this it?" They had reached a large door at the end of a corridor, so Janet rather thought this must be their destination. The sign on the door, which said

**BARRACKS**

Div. 8

Colin, you owe me new trousers

-Angie

The last bit looked like it had been added in quite recently, Janet thought before George pushed through the door and into the room behind it.

The first thing Janet noticed was the mess. Comprising various items of clothing, combs, brushes and a great many hats and pairs of dark sunglasses, it covered the floor like a trail leading from a half-open door labeled _Colin_ to a small scorched patch on the carpet near the middle of the room.

"Oh, _bugger_. Colin's been and gone, I see." George glanced back at Janet, who was shocked at the vitriol in George's voice. He'd struck her as a sort of friendly, slightly nervous feller, so his sudden anger at seeing the traces of Colin's brief return surprised her. Grinning apologetically, he added, "Sorry. He gets on my nerves, a bit. Bathroom's just through here- towels are in that cupboard."

The bathroom was icily clean and smelt strongly of lavender. Turning on the shower, Janet immediately found out why- along with a burst of freezing cold water, the shower-head let out a purplish, lavender-scented steam which broiled around Janet's feet.

"George?"

She waited a minute. The water had warmed up, thank goodness, but the purple mist was building up at a somewhat alarming rate.

"_GEORGE?_"

"What?"

"There's purple smoke everywhere!"

"Sorry about that! The demister's just above the light switch! By the door! Should take care of it!"

"Thanks!"

Janet clambered across the room, greatly aided by the wall, which was good for leaning against as she made her way back to the door. She found the light switch and, above it, what she assumed was the demister- a smallish box attached to the wall, with a switch on it. She flicked it. It didn't look like anything had changed for a few minutes- if anything, the smoke seemed to be getting thicker around her- until Janet took a few steps backwards and found herself in clear air. The purple haze, it seemed, was being sucked towards the so-called demister and although it didn't look to be disappearing, at least she could see now.

The water was properly hot by now, and Janet felt justified in using copious amounts of the liquid soap, shampoo and conditioner she found in the shower cubicle. All three had, strangely enough, the same herby scent and colour as the mist had had. However, they didn't appear to stain Janet's skin when she tested the products on her arm, so she figured she would be all right. After all, she was using what she expected was the same stuff used by the rest of the group, and they were all normal-coloured. Well, except the dragon, but she didn't count him as there was no way he would have ever been able to fit in the bathroom to use the soap in any case.

"So, who've we covered so far? Peter, Barbs, me, Jack . . . that leaves Pamela and Colin, am I right?"

"Yes," Jane replied. Then, realizing he probably couldn't hear her from back in the main room, she stuck her head out of the shower- "Sorry, _yes!_"

"Right-ho! Well, Pam's great, she deals with complaints, they're mostly from canon characters who aren't happy about all the Sues they get leaping all over them! Bit of a bugger, but there you go! We do our best, and Pamela's good at calming them down! Puts something in their tea, I think!"

"Really!" Janet felt quite glad that she'd only accepted water at the meal earlier.

"Pamela takes care of all our gear, too! And trading! And, well, paperwork and all that! Doesn't do missions any more, though! Me and her are base support for this Division!"

"That's nice!" There was a great _whump_ of air as the demister finally sucked in its load of purple smoke all at once. Janet stared, and missed George's next few sentences.

". . . but he's all right apart from that! Not his fault after all! Just a bit of a whiny git, really! That bit is his fault! But I reckon you won't meet Colin for a few weeks at least, he's still on stress leave!"

"Right!"

Well, Janet had suffered her share of whiny gits in her life- one particular sibling sprang instantly to mind- so this Colin shouldn't be too bad in comparison, she thought.

After her shower, Janet took a look at the clothes George had placed just inside the door. It was, well, a uniform, grey trousers with matching shirt and blazer, semi-formal but for the numerous, neatly-sewn up rips and tears decorating it.

The blazer had a crest on the left breast- the letters TCP embroidered in red in front of a thistle-head with the words _semper_ _videt _emblazoned beneath. It was the only splash of colour on the otherwise dull uniform, which fitted Janet oddly and had sleeves too short for her arms. Looking in the mirror, Janet wondered how Barbara had made the uniform seem so glamorous and formal- then, thinking harder, tried to remember if Barbara had actually been wearing the uniform. Realising with a shock that she couldn't actually remember what the older girl had been wearing, she looked away from the mirror- and wondered what she herself was wearing.

She looked back in the mirror. The grey uniform, of course. But it looked somehow different, now- the sleeves were a lot short than she remembered, making the shirt more of a t-shirt, really. And the trousers didn't fit nearly as badly as she'd thought they did.

She looked away from the mirror and was struck by that same fug of confusion. Looking back again, she saw that the shirt had now shrunk to a singlet top, and the blazer- well, what she assumed _had_ been the blazer had miraculously transformed itself into an armband, still featuring the thistle crest.

"I thought you'd been a while," George said as he opened the door hesitantly. "Here, I found you a comb."

"Thanks," said Janet. "Er. . . the clothes are a bit, um, strange. . ."

"Oh, sorry," said George. "They are a bit. Yes. All TPC-issue clothes are environment-sensitive and you're a, well, a new user I guess so it'll take a while to settle down. Don't worry about it."

So Janet didn't. After all, in the last twenty-four hours she'd been drugged, pheromonally hypnotized, locked up and been given green turkey to eat. Strange clothes almost paled in comparison.

Combing her hair, Janet idly wondered what tomorrow would bring. Then, after idly glancing at her wristwatch, she amended that thought- and wondered what the rest of the afternoon would bring.

- - - - - -

**Author's Note: **Longest chapter yet, and I've got permission to have the rest of Division Eight wax eloquent about the good ol' days of the PPC. What ho!


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing except the TCP. The TCP is a big thing to own, though, so I'm not that put out at not owning anything else.

This chapter may contain traces of Malfoy.

**Chapter Eight**

"_S-so, you are s-saying that Mis-ss S-starflower's demis-se came about as-s a res-sult of her own- ah, what was-s it you s-said- tragic and regrettable los-ss of cognitive ability and reas-soning?"_

"Yes, sir,"

"_I s-see._ _If you would be s-so kind as-s to tell me again what occurred, Captain Peter?"_

Peter did not gulp. It had taken years, but he was now able to meet the Officer's blank stare with a professional, sincere one of his own.

Barbara wasn't quite as prepared. Peter could see her chin quivering slightly at the edge of his line of vision; rapid throat-movement indicated that she was fighting a gag reflex.

"Yes, sir. As I told you earlier, sir, everything went smoothly until Agent Barbara removed Miss Wattingford from the holding cell for Testing. Deprived of a subject upon whom to unload her tragic back-story and whom to plead for help in escaping custody, the Sue implemented a _deus_ _ex machina _plothole to remove herself from the cell (use of said plothole being made possible by the poor maintenance of said holding cell as a result of resent cuts in funding and in no way instigated nor the fault of any Agent of the True Continuum Police). Upon achieving this, the Sue systematically dismantled a hallway until she came upon Agent George, who almost immediately lost consciousness-"

"_Yes-s."_ The Officer leant forward in its pool. "_That was-s it._ _I do not unders-stand why one of my Agents-s would react thus-s to the appearanc-ce of Mis-ss S-starflower. It is-s mos-st out of character. Perhaps-s you would explain this-s to me?"_

"Certainly, sir." Peter had seen this coming a mile off- or, rather, three hundred metres down the corridor, where he had formulated his answer. It wouldn't do at all to have the Officer know the true series of events that had led to the Sue's being spontaneously digested. "You are aware of the case of Hiari Nobleshe, sir? George hasn't quite been the same since, and I do believe, sir, that in the circumstances, fainting was the preferable course of action for Agent George to take. Especially when the alternative, sir, was being used by the Sue as a sidekick and means of escape."

"_That does-s s-sound plaus-sible, Captain._ _Thank you for clearing that up. Pleas-se, continue."_

"Sir. With Agent George unconscious and therefore unable to be affected by the Sue's influence, the Sue lost control- this is entirely in keeping with our knowledge of this particular species, sir. Once taken out of the canonstream, they require someone to acknowledge and appreciate them or they break down. This particular Sue turned her telekinetic abilities upon herself and, ah, let me see- yes, she 'dissolved in a burst of light as strange and muddled as this terrifying new world she had been thrust into. Her last thoughts were of her beloved Draco, now destined to walk the earth alone, before her body and soul became as nothing.' That's from the Reader, sir." A handy device, the Reader- handier still when you knew someone with the ability to rewrite what it recorded.

"_Ah, yes-s._ _It all s-seems-s to be in order. A pity, though."_

"Sir?"

"_Your Divis-sion s-seems-s to have made a rather dis-sturbing habit of failing to s-succ-ces-ssfully bring in errant characters-s, Captain Peter. It does-s not look good, I mus-st s-say."_

"Sorry, sir. We do our best, sir," said Captain Peter with the utmost sincerity.

"_Perhaps-s having a full complement of Agents-s in your Divis-sion will help fix this-s little problem?"_

"I do hope so, sir."

"_Very good._ _You may go."_

"Yes, sir."

The two Agents made a smart about-turn and exited the Officer's office. Peter stood back as Barbara retched into one of the waste baskets outside the door, placed there by some thoughtful gopher.

"You did a good job holding yourself together back there, Barbara. I'd forgotten you hadn't been called to report for a few weeks."

Barbara straightened and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "It's- oh, Tolkien! How much longer can she last, do you think? The old Official's _killing_ her!"

"Somehow I don't think that's the case, Barbara," Peter said. "The merging process was- complicated, to say the least. No one can be sure exactly who which part of the Officer is, or at least, was. It could be that Dame d'Ame has simply decided that the old Lawyer's form is more- suitable for her current position."

"She- but- sir, does that mean she's _killed _him?"

"In a way. Possibly." Peter sighed. "Look, it's only a theory, Barbs, there's very little to substantiate it and most of the evidence is just rumours. Let's just get back to Barracks and sort out training for Ja- for Miss Wattingford."

"All right, Peter."

Barbara averted her gaze as they passed George's greenhouses. The crawling vines up the glass wall closest to them were far too reminiscent of the creature the new Official had become for her to bear to look at.

- - - - - - - - - -

"More sugar, Mr. Malfoy?" Pamela bustled happily, splitting and buttering more muffins as she waited for her guest to reply. "It must be bitter, you've hardly touched it at all."

"Madam, you know very well that I have never, nor ever intend to take refreshment during these meetings. Do not presume to offer me any of those middle-class _nibbles_, either," Lucius added as Barbara made to pass him a plate of enormous banana-chocolate-chip muffins.

"Oh, all right then. Any for you then, dear?" Barbara turned her attentions to the younger Malfoy, who was holding his cup of tea in front of him like a shield. "Look starved to the bone, you do."

"I-"

"My son is fine, madam. If you have finished with this ridiculous hostess charade, perhaps we could continue?" Mr. Malfoy snapped his fingers. His cup of tea did not vanish, and was not replaced in his hand by a sheet of parchment. "Damn."

"Forgot again, didn't you? Your magic won't work here, Mr. Malfoy, not with all the protections up. Saves us poor Agents from being AK'd by a Lord Voldemort somewhat dismayed at discovering he's bred a flock of Sues, don't it. Had him here just last week, in fact, tried to blast me clear into next week and I'll tell you, he looked a right fool when no-"

"Do be _silent_, girl!" Lucius snatched the parchment from Draco's hands, having impatiently waited through Pamela's diatribe for the boy to find the thing in the pocket of his robe. "You will see here, girl, that my son has been made the victim of no less than eight of your Mary Sues over the last _fortnight._"

"They're not exactly my Mary Sues, Mr. Malfoy. More-"

"This is unacceptable!" The explanation mark is a much-maligned piece of punctuation, consistently overused by twelve-year-olds as they try to add emphasis to their typed expression of excitement or glee. Here, though, it represented a small but rapidly growing sense of the manic in Lucius Malfoy's speech that is seldom seen. "_You people_ have a _duty_ to see to it that these creatures do not come into contact with us! And yet you _insist _upon leaving your actions until the last minute, until after they have _tainted_ my family with their presence!"

"Mr. Malfoy-"

""_Not only that_, but am I also to understand that these molesting dregs of creation are allowed to live after they have done such damage? I assure you, muggle, that if this continues-"

"Actually, Jack ate the last one."

"-I will be forced to- excuse me? Did I just hear you say that one of your colleagues ingested the most recent Mary Sue to disrupt my son?"

"Yep. Biscuit? They're Anzacs, just out of the oven, very nice."

"Well, that is something, at least. Does this, ah, happen often?"

"Not particularly- no, first one in ages I think. The Council doesn't like it, you see, and what with _funding _such a problem we do try to keep on their good side" Pamela's emphasis on the word 'funding' was very slight. But not so slight as to remain unnoticed.

"That is inconvenient, I must say. Do stop slurping at your tea in that repulsive way, Draco."

"Yes, father," The diminutive blond muttered. He was, Pamela noticed with a little maternal worry, looking a little peaky. The draft stages of a new book could do that to people, she knew, but it really wasn't fair for someone so _young_. At least he'd been able to make his way through two and a half scones before his father gave him a darkly significant Look.

"Well, it is bloody annoying, I'll grant you that." Pamela said.

"I dare say that is something of an understatement. Now, this, ah, this Jack you mentioned. . ."

The meeting lasted another ten minutes, during which time there was a great deal of signing of papers and quiet sipping of tea. Heading back to Barracks afterwards, Pamela grinned happily to herself. There was one problem sorted out- and she'd managed to give poor Draco a decent feed into the bargain.

- - - - -

The next chapter may contain traces of missioning. And, well, a basic cut-to-months-later-after-training, 'cos I'm lazier than all you folks not reviewing. Which includes me hides


End file.
